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Telethusa is visited in a dream by the goddess Isis and is told to conceal Iphis
gender and raise her as a boy. Telethusa does so, and Iphis is perceived as a male
by the rest of the world. Ligdus names Iphis after her grandfather , keeping with a
patriarchal tradition. Ironically, the name Iphis is gender neutral, reflecting Iphis
representation of both sexes. She grows up with a female age mate named Ianthe.
When the two are betrothed, Iphis knows they cannot be married because she is a
woman. Iphis loves Ianthe and desires her sexually, but she is aware that acting
on that desire would be unnatural and impossible. She says to herself, Give up
this foolishness: you were born woman, / No use deceiving yourself as well as
others. Seek what is proper, love as woman should (Ovid, 745-748). Unlike
Megilla and Sappho, Ianthe does not actively pursue Ianthe, though she does love
her. Their relationship is acceptable only when Isis transforms Iphis into a man.
While Iphis is not a direct example of the active female, she is an example of love
between two women. However, Ovids tale still conveys and promotes sexual
restrictions and rules for women. Iphis is pure in her feminine state because she
is not sexually active. The only solution to her dilemma is for her to be
transformed into a man, further enforcing the notion that female same sex
relationships were subversive and unnatural. Perceived homosexuality was not
the only way to overstep gender boundaries of acceptability. In the Moralia,
Plutarch relates a story about the bravery of the women of Argos and the poet
Telesilla. According to Plutarch, Telesilla was physically weak until she followed
the gods advice to devote herself to poetry and music. She was highly esteemed
by the other women for her abilities and incited them to take up arms and protect
the battlements, when Cleomenes, the king of Sparta, threatened the city. Though
many women died in the fight, they succeeded in repulsing the Spartan forces.
The survivors were given leave to erect a statue of Ares in their honor . Choosing
Ares as the god for their statue is telling and may denote the womens transition
from femininity to masculinity. It is the male god of war they select, not a female
warrior goddess such as Athena. Plutarch also uses this story to explain the
origins of the Festival of Impudence, which is celebrated on the anniversary of
the battle. At the festival women wear mens clothing and men wear womens
robes. As a result of the womens newfound status and bravery, Plutarch reports
that they treated their new husbands with disrespect because they felt the men
were inferior to them. Because of this, a law was made that stateed that married
women with beards must sleep in the same beds as their husbands. This law
pokes fun, but also makes a statement about female gender roles. In On the
Bravery of Women, Plutarch claims that respectable women should remain
unseen, but their fame and good deeds should be commemorated publicly
(Fantham, 390). In the Moralia, the women of Argos proved themselves in battle
to be equal to men, but they were still subject to the rule of society that stated
that women should be married. Like men, these women have assumed the
masculine active role, which enables them to assign passivity to their husbands.
The festival to celebrate the womens victory in battle is named after impudence.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, impudent is an adjective meaning
characterized by brash behaviour or impertinent disrespect; immodest
(American Heritage Dictionary). The festival is not so much a celebration as it is a
tongue in cheek critique of the womens behavior. After the battle, they became
impudent and treated their husbands, their betters purely on the basis of gender,
with disrespect. Like the battle, the festival becomes the only circumstance in
which it is permissible for women to don masculinity as symbolized by mens
clothing. The law that is created to address the women also has a serious note, as
it warns the women not to take the same liberties with their sexuality as they
have with their behavior. So, while it would be acceptable for men in their
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positions to seek sexual relationships with certain women outside of their wives
beds, it is unacceptable and unlawful for women to follow the same scenario.
Another traditionally male field that women took part in was philosophy. Diogenes
Laertius, a biographer of Greek philosophers in the third century CE, related the
story of a female philosopher named Hipparchia, who fell in love with a
philosopher named Crates. Because she is from a wealthy family, he tests her love
by taking off his clothes in front of her and telling her that he is all she will
receive in the marriage. She chooses him anyway and begins to dress as a man
and accompany him on all of his outings. She made love to him in public; she
went to dinner parties with him (Diogenes Laertius). By attaching herself to
Crates, Hipparchia has assumed the mixed role of the active female and hetaira.
Only hetairai accompanied men to parties with other men. Her having intercourse
with him in public also draws a direct connection to the case of Neaira, a
courtesan whose past sexual history was prosecuted under Athenian law. In the
case, Neaira was painted as a salacious woman, and one of her misdeeds
included having sexual intercourse in public. Though Hipparchia is obviously
intelligent and able to outwit a few of the men in her husbands circle with her
philosophical skill, her sexual behaviour and presence in the male setting renders
her an unrespectable woman. To conclude, the social and gender norms for
women in antiquity were very restrictive. Under Roman and Greek patriarchy,
women were simultaneously ruled by men and segregated from them. A womans
respectability was often times based on her chastity because, as the weaker sex,
it was believed that women had no strong moral compasses with which to guide
their judgement. As such, men believed women were prone to licentiousness and
other errors in character. This assumption may have formed the basis for mens
justification of the repression of female sexuality and the creation of passive
femininity. For women then to assume the masculine active role was not only
seen as unnatural in the ancient world, it was dangerous to the very hierarchal
patriarchies on which these civilizations were grounded.
*Hippocrates. On the Generating Seed and the Nature of the Child 4-7, 13, 30.
Trans. I.M. Lonie. In Mary Lefkowitz and Maureen Fant, eds. Women's Life in
Greece and Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1982. Pgs. 85-87
*Aristotle. Politics 1254b3-1277b25 (excerpts); 1313b33-39; 1335a8-17. Trans.
B. Jowett. In Women's Life in Greece and Rome. Pgs. 63-65
*Fantham, Elaine et al. eds. Women in the Classical World. New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1994. Pg, 59
Martin, Thomas R. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times. New
Haven: Yale Univ. 1996. Pg. 79
Politics.
Ruth Mazo Karras. Active/Passive, Acts/Passions: Greek and Roman
Sexualities. The American Historical Review. 2000.
King, Helen. Sowing the Field: Greek and Roman Sexology. In Roy Porter and
Mikulas Teich, eds. Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to
Sexuality. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994. Pg, 30.
Fantham et al. Women in the Classical World. Pg. 15
Rayor, pg. 161
Pintabone, Diane T. Ovids Iphis and Ianthe: When Girls Wont be Girls. In Lisa
Auanger and Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, eds. Among Women: From the
Homosocial and the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. Austin: Univ. of Texas
Press, 2002Pg. 265
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Haley, Shelley P. Lucians Laeana and Clonarium. In Lisa Auanger and Nancy
Sorkin Rabinowitz, eds. Among Women: From the Homosocial and the
Homoerotic in the Ancient World. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2002 Pg, 292.
Haley, pg. 293
Ovid. The Story of Iphis and Ianthe. Metamorphoses. Trans. Rolfe Humphries.
Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1955. Pgs. 229-233.
Pintabone, 265-272
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